genre (n.) Look up genre at Dictionary.com
1770, "particular style of art," a French word in English (nativized from c. 1840), from French genre "kind, sort, style" (see gender (n.)). Used especially in French for "independent style." In painting, as an adjective, "depicting scenes of ordinary life" (a domestic interior or village scene, as compared to landscape, historical, etc.) from 1849.